NLJ: The Environmental Cost of Dispute Resolution

Eimear McCann and Michael Wilkinson question whether we need a profession-wide approach to reduce the environmental impact of litigation in the latest edition of the New Law Journal.

With increasing pressure to meet ESG commitments, should the courts push for more sustainable litigation, by leveraging technology; and do we need rule reform to see a complete shift in mindset and practice?

Incredibly, according to the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations, the average international arbitration takes nearly as many as 20,000 trees to offset (although, as offsetting is itself deeply problematic, it is always better to reduce emissions in the first place).

If the environmental reasons don’t change behaviour, however, then client-driven imperatives might. Wilkinson and McCann write: ‘Increasingly, corporate clients are operating within an environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework and are beholden to their stakeholders. They may have contractual commitments to endeavour to reduce their emissions; their funding may even have been subject to such commitments. Increasingly, regulations require companies to report on their carbon emissions and transition plans, and shareholders may call for more environmentally responsible behaviour.

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